Life, the Universe, and everything

Thoughts on life, the Middle East, and just about everything else.

Thursday, September 05, 2002

For a citizen of a country manacled to its past, Dr. Georg Sieber had a remarkable knack for seeing the future. In the months leading up to the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West German organizers asked Sieber, then a 39-year-old police psychologist, to "tabletop" the event, as security experts call the exercise of sketching out worst-case scenarios. Sieber looks a bit like the writer Tom Clancy, and the crises he limned drew from every element of the airport novelist's genre: kidnappers and hostages, superpower patrons and smuggled arms, hijacked jets and remote-controlled bombs. Studying the most ruthless groups of that era, from the Irish Republican Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization to the Basque separatist group ETA and West Germany's own Baader-Meinhof Gang, he came up with 26 cases, each imagined in apocalyptic detail. Most of Sieber's scenarios focused on the Olympic Village, the Games' symbolic global community; one that did not — a jet hired by a Swedish right-wing group crashes into a crowded Olympic Stadium — foreshadowed a September day in another city many years later.
But on Sept. 5, 1972 at the Munich Olympics, history would not wait. It hastened to crib from one of Sieber's scenarios virtually horror for horror. The psychologist had submitted to organizers Situation 21, which comprised the following particulars: At 5:00 one morning, a dozen armed Palestinians would scale the perimeter fence of the Village. They would invade the building that housed the Israeli delegation, kill a hostage or two ("To enforce discipline," Sieber says today), then demand the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails and a plane to fly to some Arab capital. Even if the Palestinians failed to liberate their comrades, Sieber predicted, they would "turn the Games into a political demonstration" and would be "prepared to die ... On no account can they be expected to surrender."

There was only one problem with Sieber's "situations." To guard against them, organizers would have to scrap plans to stage the Games they had been planning for years — a sporting jubilee to repudiate the last Olympics on German soil, the 1936 Nazi Games in Berlin. The Munich Olympics were to be "the Carefree Games." There would be no place for barbed wire, troops or police bristling with sidearms. Where Berlin had been festooned with swastikas and totalitarian red, Munich would feature a one-worldish logo and pastel bunting. Where Hitler's Olympics had opened and closed with cannon salutes and der Führer himself presiding, these would showcase a new, forward-looking Germany, fired with the idealism pervading the world at the time. Security personnel, called Olys, were to be inconspicuous, prepared for little more than ticket fraud and drunkenness.

The organizers asked Sieber if he might get back to them with less frightful scenarios — threats better scaled to the Games they intended to stage. Thirty years later, in his house in the Nymphenburg district of Munich, Sieber recalls all this with neither bitterness nor any apparent sense of vindication. He betrays only the clinical detachment characteristic of his profession. "The American psychologist Lionel Festinger developed the theory of cognitive dissonance," he says. "If you have two propositions in conflict, it's human nature to disregard one of them." Keep reading.

"The White House proposal to arm about 1 percent of our nation's airline pilots on a trial basis is a joke, but it's a very bad joke considering the approaching anniversary of the 9-11 attacks," said Capt. Tracy Price, chairman of the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance, or APSA, in a statement today...
Price and other supporters of the issue have called the plan inadequate, advising that the small number of pilots would not be enough to seriously discourage potential terrorist hijackers. And they say the slow pace of adding more air marshals to the federal ranks means arming pilots is imperative.

Also, APSA and other pilots' groups have said it would be cheaper for the government to authorize and train pilots to carry guns rather than hire and train tens of thousands of new air marshals.

Legislation approved by the House in July would mandate that pilots be allowed to carry arms, taking the decision away from federal bureaucrats. Price said his organization is supporting a similar measure in the Senate that could come up for a vote today.

"The White House appears to be trying to offer this program as a means of reducing the strong momentum for passing a real armed-pilot bill in the Senate," Price said. "The proposal for a small 'test program' is completely unacceptable now, just as it was when it was floated in the House . . . last summer."

A 16-year-old Canadian youth, reportedly tied to al-Qaida, is being held in Afghanistan for the murder of a U.S. Special Forces medic..
Reports also said the Toronto-born youth, Omar Al Khadr, was badly injured in action that resulted in the death of the U.S. soldier, and that he is being held at U.S. military headquarters in Bagram, north of the capital city of Kabul.
Sources said the Canadian government is pressuring Washington for the return of its citizen, while the U.S. government is investigating the death of the Special Forces medic as a potential capital crime. Source.

Two Israeli soldiers killed in GazaCapt. Malik Grifat, 24, of Beit Zarzir, a deputy company commander in the Erez Battalion of the Givati Brigade, was killed and his radio operator lightly wounded by a terrorist who ambushed them near Nisanit. Grifat, who was shot in the head, died shortly after arriving at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. The second soldier underwent surgery, and his condition was described as good.
The Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack.
Battalion commander Lt.-Col. Yossi Hadad and other soldiers closed in on the terrorist and killed him. According to reports, gunfire was also directed at the troops from a nearby school that was crowded with pupils.
Grifat was buried last night in the military cemetery in Beit Zarzir. He is survived by his parents, six sisters, and two brothers.
Beit Zarzir is a Bedouin community and has lost 28 of its sons in the defense of Israel, 3 in this year. Bedouins are not obligated to serve in the Israeli military but many volunteer, and in Beit Zarzir the volunteer rate is increasing.

In the central Gaza Strip at about 8 a.m., Sgt. Aviad Dotan, 21, of Moshav Nir Galim, a tank driver, was killed and three other members of a Merkava Mk 3 tank crew were wounded, after it set off a mine containing more than 100 kilograms of explosives in a well-planned ambush north of the Kissufim crossing.
Dotan is to be buried this afternoon at the moshav cemetery.

This REALLY pisses me off. Laurent Murawiec, a RAND think-tank analyst who told the Defense Policy Board, a non-governmental grouping of former senior officials and intellectuals, that "the Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader" in a July 10 briefing, has been forced to resign.

Israel Strikes Back:
In the aftermath of the Munich attack, [where 11 Israeli Olympians were murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists, Palestinian terror organization] Black September threatened to target Lufthansa planes as long as the three surviving Olympic terrorists remained in German custody. According to Abu Daoud, whose account is not disputed by several highly placed German sources, West German officials responded by offering $9 million, plus a proposal for a staged hijacking to provide a pretext for returning the captives. Indeed, on Oct. 29, 1972, two terrorists commandeered a Lufthansa jet as it left Beirut for Frankfurt with only 11 passengers, none of them women or children. West Germany promptly acceded to the hijackers' demands, sending the three surviving Munich terrorists to Libya so quickly that they were virtually on the ground in Tripoli before Israel knew the swap had been consummated.

The Germans' swift capitulation led [Israeli Prime Minister Golda] Meir to become "literally physically sickened," as she put it in her memoir. She gave free rein to the Mossad, the Israeli secret police, whose hit teams over the next six years tracked down and killed at least 20 Palestinians, in Rome, Paris, Athens and Nicosia, Cyprus, as well as in the Arab world. Two of the three freshly released Munich terrorists, Adnan Al-Gashey and Mohammed Safady, were among those to die. Eventually agents assassinated..Ali Hassan Salameh, who had helped orchestrate the Munich attack and joined mastermind Abu Daoud and the eight fedayeen for dinner at the train station on the eve of the operation..
In the most legendary action, in April 1973, future Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, dressed in drag and carrying grenades in his brassiere, led three teams of Sayeret Matkal special forces into Beirut under cover of darkness. After coming ashore in inflatable rafts, the commandos pulled off three assassinations in three apartment buildings, then returned to getaway speedboats, all within 30 minutes. [Source]

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

After the Veil, a Makeover Rush: In May, Debbie Rodriguez found herself in Kabul, Afghanistan, on a relief mission with a group of American doctors, nurses, dentists and social workers. Ms. Rodriguez, a hairdresser from Holland, Mich., had volunteered to work as a videographer and gofer. But she quickly found that the need for medicine, dental fillings and counseling was nothing next to the pent-up demand for a makeover...
As burkas come off and salons closed by the Taliban reopen, one consequence of two decades of war and repression is becoming poignantly clear: Afghan women have held on to their desire to look beautiful, but they face a woeful shortage of beauticians. Also, they have no one to teach them and nowhere to lay their hands on a decent comb, let alone the panoply of gels, rinses, powders, liners and colors that spill from the shelves of the average American drugstore.
Now, in an effort guaranteed to warm the hearts of Vogue readers everywhere, a Who's Who of the American beauty industry, helped along by Vogue's editor in chief, Anna Wintour, is racing to the rescue.

The economic impact of the World Trade Center attack could reach $95 billion and cost 83,000 jobs in New York, according to a report by the city's financial manager. .."While this devastating event can never be reduced to numbers, it is clear that New York City and the nation will continue to suffer its economic ramifications for years to come" AP

Note that these numbers do not include impact to the airline industry, etc. I've heard estimates of $600B total damage (I'll look for the link.)

Finally!!The U.S. administration plans to adopt a small-scale test program of arming commercial pilots, reversing its previous opposition to guns in the cockpit. The administration is modeling its plan after similar proposals that circulated in Congress this summer. One such plan would have armed as many as 1,400 pilots, about 2 percent of those flying.

Today in history:
PLO TERRORISTS KILL ELEVEN ISRAELI ATHLETES IN THE MUNICH MASSACRE, 1972
Eleven Israeli athletes were brutally murdered by the P.L.O.’s Black September terror organization during the 1972 Olympic games held at the Olympic village in Munich, Germany.
More information on the Munich Massacre.

Tuesday, September 03, 2002

Fascinating article about popular restlessness in Iran. Some stats:
According to Hossein Ghazian, director of the polling firm Ayande, 66 percent of Iranians say they want reform, and 23 percent want radical change. Only 11 percent say the system is fine as is. Asked whether religion and the state should remain intertwined, he says, ''Almost 50 percent said they should not be separated, and 36 percent said they should, but if you compare that to 10 years ago, 70 percent said they should not be separated.'' On music:
Dancing, especially between unmarried boys and girls, is, of course, strictly illegal. (At licensed concerts, audience members stay in their seats, nodding their heads or upper bodies only as much as they dare. ''Sometimes there are some courageous boys who head-bang while sitting down,'' Riahipour says, laughing. ''Once I played a concert where there were 5,000 people. One guy got up and started dancing, and they beat the [expletive] out of him.'') and the power of the Web:
O-Hum got fed up with waiting, so they put their music on the Internet. Now anyone who wants to can listen.
For the time being, the conservatives at the helm of the Islamic republic have no solution to such easy technological loopholes. And whereas two years ago only 500,000 Iranians had access to the Internet, today that number is estimated at 1.75 million and is expected to grow to at least 5 million in the next five years.
This widespread access has allowed many young Iranians to follow political or cultural developments anywhere on the planet. But even more significant, perhaps, it has allowed people to talk to one another. The computer has become particularly important in the lives of urban girls, often confined at home by traditionalist parents who, by the same token, have absolutely no clue what their daughters are doing online.
A lot of what they're doing, it turns out, is blogging. For the uninitiated, a blog is a Web log, a kind of online diary or journal. Many blogs, Iranian or otherwise, are boring accounts of people's daily lives, or gibberish-like streams of consciousness. But in Iran, bolstered by the anonymity their computer screens provide, female bloggers are catching attention for their daring and articulate mix of politics, dirty jokes and acid comment.

Women treated as chattle:
Tucked in the corner of Tehran's south bus terminal, behind a high security fence, is an office that is a first stop for freshly caught runaways and delinquents. Late on a recent afternoon, a girl named Fatimah, who had just arrived on a bus from the provinces, is in shock. Tears are streaming down her face. ''I want to go home,'' she wails. ''I want to go to my mother! Call my mother, please -- call my mother!'' Soon a police doctor will administer a compulsory virginity test, the result of which may have a profound effect on the rest of Fatimah's life. Shrouded in a chador and made up, she looks 17, but her identity card reveals that she is just 14....If the authorities determine that she and the boy had sex, they may well be forced to marry...In Tehran, some surgeons specialize in restoring a girl's virginity, technically speaking at least. This illegal operation costs $50. Abortion, of course, is also strictly illegal, except under certain conditions, like a threat to the woman's life. So the current price of a back-alley abortion can run as high as $500. If the father has fled, Abbasglizadeh says, young women have been known to sleep with another man and convince him that the pregnancy is his responsibility. A religion of peace?
Inside a typical mosque in the modest south Tehran district of Afsarieh, young Basijees -- members of Ali Khamenei's volunteer Islamic militia -- are gathered for the evening. Some are studying the Koran while 25 boys, ages 10 to 12, are studying the Kalashnikov. Amir Parish, their 21-year-old instructor, is saying, ''The ammunition clips hold 30 to 40 bullets.'' On cue, the boys shout ''Allah akbar!'' -- God is great! -- and disband happily for the evening, each clutching a leaflet about the Palestinian uprising. On television here a suicide bombing is called a ''martyrdom-seeking operation.'' ...During the [Iran-Iraq] war, the Basij played a key role, with children being sent on ''martyrdom-seeking operations'' to clear minefields.

you've got such a pretty smile
it's a shame the things you hide behind it
let 'em go give it up for a while
let 'em free and we will both go find it
I know, there's no where you can hide it
I know the feeling of alone
I know that you do not feel invited
but come back
come back in from the cold
step away then from the edge
your best friend in life is not
your mirror
back away come back away come back away
I am here and I will be
forever and ever and I
I know
there's nowhere you can hide it
I know the feeling of alone
trust me and don't keep that
on the inside
soon
you'll, you'll be locked out on your own.
you're not alone.
you're not alone.
and don't say you've never been told
I'll be with you till we grow old
till i'm underground and i'm cold
I'm not sitting here on some throne
I'll be with you till we're both gone
like a dog you can always come home
go pick up a bone.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety; is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better persons than himself." — John Stuart Mills

Amercian victims of terror:
Iran hostage crisis, November 4, 1979: After President Carter agreed to admit the shah of iran into the U.S., iranian radicals seized the U.S. embassy in tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen hostages were soon released, but the remaining 53 were held until their release on January 20, 1981.

U.S. Embassy bombing, Beirut April 18, 1983:
Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were killed, and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in beirut, lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Bombing of Marine barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Hijacking of TWA flight 847, June 24, 1985. Muslim hijackers held Americans hostage on a murderous journey. Steelworker Petty Officer 2nd class Robert Dean Stethem was murdered by terrorists onboard the hijacked TWA flight 847 and his body was hurled onto the tarmac. So horrible were his wounds, the body had to be identified by its fingerprints.
Robert Dean Stethem was bound and gagged. Then he was beaten with rifle butts (or maybe pistol-whipped), kicked and trampled. All his ribs were broken. His face was one wound. His torturers were enraged that they could not knock him out- he was too strong. After they had done with him, they threw him back into a seat, and allowed him to suffer there for a while.
Ruth Henderson's recounting of the day Stethem was executed deserves to be repeated- and repeated.
For several hours, Henderson testified, she sat beside the sailor from Maryland after he had been brutally beaten and before one of the terrorists put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The Navy diver was so badly hurt that he was unable to hold or light a cigarette and she had to do it for him, she told the court, her voice shaking.
The two young people talked of "unimportant things, about his diving, about Greece," she said. "By talking about normal things, he seemed to relax and forget the pain. It helped keep both our minds off the ordeal." ( Capt. John L. Testrake, the pilot, testified about Stethem's ordeal last fall at Hamadei's trial and said, " Despite the savagery to which he was subjected, he never cried out.... Stethem was probably the bravest young man I have ever seen in my life.")
One of six Navy divers on the hijacked flight, returning to the States from assignment, Robbie Stethem suspected he was going to die.
"He said it may be better that he died," the Australian woman told the court. " He believed that someone would die on the plane, someone from the Navy men, and he said that because he was the only one who wasn't married, that he should be the one to die."
Displaying exceptional fortitude and loyalty to his country, Robert Stethem was singled out for his affiliation with the military, beaten, tortured and finally murdered while the terrorists were trying to effect negotiations. For his gallantry and bravery in the face of death, Stethem was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Pan Am 103, Lockerbie Bombing, December 21, 1988
Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft in Frankfurt, West Germany, by Libyan terrorists. All 259 people on board were killed.

USS Cole bombing, October 12, 2000: Terrorist Osama bin Laden is suspected to have masterminded the explosion that blew a 40-by-60-foot hole into the side of the ship, killed 17 U.S. soldiers and wounded 37.

Terrorism: "The unlawful use of — or threatened use of — force or violence against individuals or propety to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."
— U.S. Department of Defense

Kashmir Islamic Atrocities in India: Over 40,000 attacks by militants on innocent civilians of murder, torture, bombing, kidnapping, rape, looting and arson have taken place between 1988 and 1998. Forced conversion at the point of a sword has been the prominent means of expanding the Muslim dominance. Over 1,100 Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) have been brutally murdered, 20,000 of their homes burned and 40,000 families deprived of any income by the appropriation or destruction of their land and businesses. Islamic terrorists employ the most sadistic torture in killing their victims: strangulation with steel wires, hanging, impailing, branding with hot irons, burning alive, lynching, bleeding to death, gouging out of vital organs, dismemberment and drowning alive.

To bring the murderers of Navy Diver Robert Stethem to justice, the United States Government is offering a reward of up to $5,000,000. The money is available under a program to obtain information that helps punish those responsible for past international terrorist acts against U.S. persons or property and prevent future such acts.
In the United States, call your local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Diplomatic Security at 1-800-437-6371 or write to:

In the Salon review of "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner this quote from Haffner's book struck me:
"The great danger of life in Germany has always been emptiness and boredom
... The menace of monotony hangs, as it has always hung, over the great
plains of northern and eastern Germany, with their colorless towns and their
all too industrious, efficient, and conscientious business and
organizations. With it comes a horror vacui and the yearning for
'salvation': through alcohol, through superstition, or, best of all, through
a vast, overpowering, cheap mass intoxication."

It is parallel to the situation in the gulf states: gov. subsidized non-workforce---legions of young men w/ nothing to do
to assuage their boredom save going to mosque -- "cheap mass intoxication".

“Those who do not believe in Allah will suffer the same fate.” This was
the chilling message left with the severed heads two hostages executed by
the Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyaf on the island of
Jolo in the southern Philippines.

The terrorist group seized eight people as they were travelling in a
jeep on the island on 20 August. Two Muslim men were released
immediately but the other six were held. These were Jehovah’s Witnesses. No
ransom demand was made and the severed heads of two male hostages were
later found by government troops. The four women in the group are still
being held.

Why don't we help the Iranians overthrow their government? It would make defeating Iraq so much easier were our bases in Iran.

Iran's Sullen Majority - Tim Judah
The 1979 Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini is now crumbling. Iran is a country with two faces: the public face of conformity with Islamic rules and the private face, which as often as not shuns, ignores, or even despises those strictures. Iran is in the throes of a new revolution: a social and cultural revolution every bit as powerful as the one that toppled the shah. According to the Ayande polling firm , 66 percent of Iranians say they want reform, and 23 percent want radical change. Only 11 percent say the system is fine as is. (New York Times Magazine)

Learning to be a Martyr in Elementary School A program broadcast on Palestinian television featured young Palestinian girls describing the central role of the armed struggle (against Israel) in their lives.
One small girl described how in her Palestinian elementary school, the physical education teacher directs the game "Soldiers and Arabs." The children pretend that various objects are weapons and use these "weapons" to "kill" other girls, playing martyrs. They then grasp the "martyr" and shout, "Martyr, wait! Wait! Take us with you to Paradise!"

Another nest o' partisan knee jerk liberals, wasting our tax money to suck up to the Arab world (they probably have run out of vaseline by this point):

PBS Draws Ire Over 9/11 ShowNew York's WNET public television station is marking September 11 with a documentary whose website is being lambasted.. for offering an inaccurate and one-sided history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The website includes a map portraying all of Israel as "Palestine," a time line that blames Ariel Sharon for provoking the recent wave of violence by Palestinian Arabs, and links to websites of Arab-American organizations that have defended groups like Hamas and Hizballah, which the American government considers terrorist organizations. WNET receives $9 million a year in government funding...
The program and Web site were produced by the Independent Television Service, an arm of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB gets about $342 million a year from the federal government. (New York Sun)

UPDATE from LGF - looks like the buggers put a bandaid over the map, so it now reads Palestine/Israel.
Just remember when it comes time to pledge for WNET this year - DON'T. And call them and tell them why you are withholding your donation.

Scorecard on the "Gaza-Bethlehem First" Security Agreement Israeli Defense Minister Ben Eliezer announced a plan on Aug. 19 aimed at pulling IDF troops out of Bethlehem and from parts of the Gaza Strip. Since the announcement, attacks [by Palestinians] on the road that runs from Kissufim checkpoint in the middle of the Gaza Strip have increased, officials said. The Israeli army contends that more troops, not fewer, are now necessary in Gaza...Islamic Jihad, Hamas and a military wing of Fatah have created a kind of round-robin system of infiltrators. Last month, Islamic Jihad supplied the people for an attempted attack, while Hamas supplied the weapons. In the attack on Kfar Darom, army officials said, Islamic Jihad put the weapons in place and Fatah militants ferried infiltrators from the northern Gaza Strip... According to Col. Halutzi Rudoy, commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, "In Bethlehem, the army went in, got inside, and drove most of the bad guys out. Here, the bad guys haven't gone anywhere. All of them are still inside." (Chicago Tribune)

Sunday, September 01, 2002

Two of the funniest bloglines I've seen ever:

saw this gem at ToneCluster:
Would the person from the Seventh Day Adventist Church who keeps finding this blog by googling "Jews are ugly" finally please get the point that I'm a handsome devil, and just simply go away now?

and my alltime favorite from Amish Tech Support (Laurence please forgive the slight rephrasing) --
I was (am currently) at the Firehouse on 59 instead, waiting to see Don Huffman and Denny Dew's band play. Denny does keyboards and Don... um... doesn't. Firehouse has a bunch of Picnic benches as tables and boots hanging from the ceiling. Totally shitkicker Texas.Table has "ANDY IS A JEW" written on it. Way to go, Andy.

The Palestinian Authority's [PA] sending different messages to the world and to their own people was seen again last week after the Palestinian journalists union “banned journalists from photographing Palestinian children carrying weapons ... saying that the pictures harm the Palestinian cause.” [AP The Jerusalem Post Aug. 26, 2002]

However, at the same time that they are preventing the world from seeing their children with guns, Palestinian Authority TV interviewed a child in his home - and for the purpose of the interview - placed a Kalatchnikov automatic rifle with the bullet clip over his shoulder.

Clearly, while they don’t want the world to see them manipulating their children to violence, the message of child violence is precisely what they want to give Palestinian children watching PA TV. See the photo here.
--courtesy of the Palestinian Media Watch. To subscribe to PMW bulletins, send an empty email to reports-subscribe@pmw.org.il

A comprehensive Oil Security Plan: how to wean ourselves off of Arab oil without impairing our quality of life.

The United States is not locked into ever-greater oil dependence.We can kick our oil
addiction by following a five-step program to use American technology and know-
how to produce dramatically better vehicles and fuels:

Step 1 Raise federal fuel economy standards.This is the fastest and cheapest way to
reduce both the oil consumption and the global warming emissions of new vehicles
powered by conventional gasoline engine technology.
Step 2 Provide tax credits to support the transition to new technology —gasoline-
electric hybrids and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles —with double and triple the mileage of
conventional cars.
Step 3 Boost the use of renewable fuels —especially ethanol made from agricultural
wastes and other biomass —by steadily increasing requirements for “renewable content ”
in gasoline.
Step 4 Bring hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles and clean sources of hydrogen to full-scale
production by a combination of federal financial support and production requirements.
Step 5 Encourage smart growth instead of suburban sprawl to increase our trans-
portation choices and make our communities more livable with less need for driving.

Oil wealth pays for terror. We can reduce Arab oil revenue. SPREAD THE WORD. MAKE THEM DRINK THEIR OIL.